Books, arts and culture

Bill Callahan documentary

Mystery man

SMOG is the former moniker of Bill Callahan, the shadowy lo-fi American singer-songwriter. The name suited him well. His music has been described as emotional and intimate but also distant, and he has always obscured himself from his fans. His lyrics appear to be wrenched from deep inside himself without giving away who he is as a man. He is notoriously elusive: one New York Times reporter wrote that even his tape recorder had trouble picking up Mr Callahan’s voice.

A new hour-long documentary follows him on the road across America during his band’s “Apocalypse” tour last year. The film opens with Mr Callahan reading from that newspaper profile in a blank voice: “The New York Times says, when I was younger I seemed very very strange. The New York Times says that I put a big and mysterious idea in a modest place.” His emotions are subdued, there is just a tight smile that curls up at the side of his mouth and quickly fades.

Anyone who hopes that the documentary will cast some light on the man behind more than two decades of haunting music will be quickly disappointed. The film is like an extended music video, mixing footage of Mr Callahan on stage with montages of American life to complement the mood of his stripped-back steady baritone: bulldozers and bails of hay on a flatbed truck; fireworks in the sky above a carwash; American-flag Budweiser cans by a backyard badminton game; a skateboarder pulling on his backpack as he weaves down a hill. “A year or two ago I decided that symbols are everything and that’s all we have,” says Mr Callahan in a voiceover. “That’s how we communicate. Everything is just a metaphor for something else.” This is no generic “band on tour” film with frivolous backstage shots of the artist with his guard down, blowing off steam.

Hanly Banks, the film-maker, says she intentionally didn’t reveal “quote-unquote Bill” even though she knows this may anger some people who want to know what he is like. “In reality, he’s a really funny guy,” but she decided to focus on the solemn, contemplative Bill, because “if you only have a few chances to show who someone is you want to take it seriously,” she says. In the film, Ms Banks shows an intense and earnest performer, trying to conjure the complete emotional depth of his songs for the audiences gathered in small venues across America. Deceptively simple instrumentation and unceremonious presentation belie the power of his sound. His melancholy numbers, like “Say Valley Maker” and “Riding For The Feeling”, convey despair without falling into hopelessness.

The film offers a few glimpses of the other, more animated, man. At one point he stops his car on the side of the road and gets out in his flip-flops to free a small goat which has tangled its horns in a fence. During a soundcheck, he breaks his focus on a dark, slow song and says “oh, there’s a kitty”. But these moments are just eccentricities that bring us no closer to the real Bill.

“It’s kind of a catch-22,” says Ms Banks. “The reason that I wanted to document him is that he never gives anything to anyone and it’s kind of a challenge.” But instead of confronting this challenge, the film ultimately perpetuates the myth of Bill Callahan. Ms Banks has done an excellent job of synthesising the atmosphere of his music and live performances, while leaving his character and personality unexamined. She is complicit with her subject.

Mr Callahan claims he is at his most exposed on stage, “I think when I’m performing live it’s really just the realest me that there is.” This sounds like an attempt to side-step the subterfuge. In this film Ms Banks ensures that the spell is left unbroken.